#Floodhack: Thank you and Congratulations from Tech City UK

I would like to take the opportunity to thank you all for your support and participation in #Floodhack yesterday (16 Feb 2014).

We had such a phenomenal response with over 200 signups in 24 hours! We are hugely grateful and it’s a testament to the strength, generosity and power of London’s Tech community.

The day-long #floodhack opened the Government’s flood level data and other relevant data sources from the Government Data Services and the Environmental Agency to individuals as well as developers and engineers from Google, Facebook, Conversocial, Twitter, Microsoft, Datasift, Twilio, Nominet Trust, TechHub, skhub, Shoothill, SessionDigital and Inviqa.

Over the course of the day we had hundreds of people volunteer their time to produce genuinely innovative apps that are testament to the creativity, imagination and generosity of our local tech community and demonstrates the power of government opening up data.

The event culminated with pitches from sixteen teams who were each allocated two minutes to present their hack to a review panel with participants from Google, Tech City, No. 10, the Cabinet Office and Conversocial . After hearing the presentations, the panel selected a shortlist of the most relevant and useful applications for those affected by the floods.

I would like to congratulate you all and in particular the following apps:

Don’t Panic – a system that allows people with and without web access to request and receive help, ranging from the delivery of materials, to local information. The system will record data for future analysis and real time response planning.

UKFloodAlerts – an alert system that allows people to select a predefined specific alert, such as power loss, a burst river bank, flooded roads/paths etc., with those in the local area being instantly alerted by app or SMS.

FludBud – using Twitter to spread the word about floodvolunteers.co.uk; locating Twitter users near flood affected areas and tweeting them information aboutfloodvolunteers.co.uk and potential volunteers in the vicinity.

ViziCities – a tool that visualises flood levels in 3D using the ViziCities platform.

Who do I call when I have a power cut? – a service that lets people look up their Distribution Network Operator (DNO) based on their postcode, connecting them with the right people when their power is cut.

Citizen Flood Journalism – a service that located people tweeting from flood-affected areas and messages them to request photographs and descriptions which are then compiled into a geo-linked feed of flood-related information.

MyState – a service that allows people at risk of flooding to register themselves and their state using their phone to access the best information to help themselves and request help from others. They can also opt-in to receive warnings for their location should conditions in their environment escalate.

It’s such a tough time for many in the UK making it ever more important that they have relevant and real time information to manage their immediate needs.

We came together yesterday in unified support and made clear the vital link between people and government data and the role of the tech community in connecting the two to deliver useful, relevant and vital solutions.

Hi Sue, yes I agree. #floodhack was organised at very short notice. Sasha unfortunately couldnt attend – due tothe floods! – but, being nearer, I managed to attend for a few hours, wearing both BlueLightCamp and Hampshire Hub hats (the latter is at http://protohub.net )

We are collaborating on a hack (and unconference) event the weekend of 10/11 May in Southampton at Ordnance Survey. Tech hubs from around the UK will be most welcome!